Confessions
by MMB
Summary: Sydney looks for something he can't define in an unlikely place corrected


Title - Confessions   
Author - MMB   
Fandom - the Pretender  
Rating - G   
Category - Vignette   
Spoilers - not really  
Timeline - anytime after IOTH  
Summary - Sydney looks for something he can't define in an unlikely setting  
Disclaimer: They aren't mine. I'm just borrowing them for a bit. Please don't kill me...  
  
  
Confessions  
by MMB  
  
It was an old church, the front steps of which were framed by sedate and venerable oak trees. How many times he'd walked past that church in the decades he'd lived but a block away, Sydney couldn't imagine. But not since he was a small boy hanging onto his mother's hand had he willingly stepped inside a house of worship with any sense of belonging.   
  
Oh, yes, there had been many times that Jarod's wanderings had brought him and the others involved in the hunt for the Pretender into a 'house of God'. Jarod seemed drawn, somehow, to whatever good might be there - and inevitably he found some way to be of genuine service to someone through his contact. But his own tenure in Nazi concentration camps followed by decades of service to the Centre had dulled Sydney's appreciation for the contemplation of the Divine. Only once, not long after Jarod's escape, had he ever attempted to make confession - driven there by the sickened realization of just how morally poisoned his life's work had actually been and his own convenient blindness to that fact for so long. But all he'd found there, to his horror, had been the utter futility of any such effort.  
  
Since then, entering those churches after Jarod had already left them had come only at Miss Parker's firm insistence - to get his professional impression of Jarod's lair, if that was where it was located, in situ prior to being boxed and shipped back to Delaware. Otherwise Sydney generally avoided even thinking about anything that suggested or resembled religion or faith - or hope. He certainly had no time to voluntarily sit in church looking for a redemption that he was now certain he didn't deserve, convinced that it would be wasted time in a life that had far too little time left to it to be wasted.  
  
Still, late on this dreary afternoon, tired from an endless and frustrating day meeting with Mr. Raines and his right-hand man, Lyle, Sydney found himself staring up at the double doors of the little stone Catholic Church around the corner from his own house. Somehow, his aimless 'walk to unwind' had brought him here and then caused him to pause. Sydney ran his finger beneath his nose to scratch it idly, looking at the worn stone steps with a critical eye and figuring that, considering how late in the afternoon it really was, that the place was probably, wisely, locked up tight. He wouldn't know, however, unless...  
  
The latch gave easily beneath his thumb, and the door swung open on well-oiled and silent hinges. Taking a deep breath, not entirely sure what he was steeling himself against, Sydney took that last step that brought him out of the late afternoon sun into the cool internal semi-darkness of the church. He stared forward at the altar, lit both by the setting afternoon sun through windows on the left as well as the electrical lights and the flickering flame behind the red glass of the suspended sanctuary lamp, for a long moment. Then, with a reluctant glance at the little inset bowl of water near the door, he moved just far enough into the building to be able to sit down in the very last pew.  
  
It was peaceful here, he decided, if nothing else. And with a smile when he remembered he'd left his cell phone in the kitchen, along with the jacket that had the pocket he normally kept it in, he settled back for some uninterrupted contemplation. Nobody from the Centre would know he was here; nobody from the Centre would think to look for him in such a place. He leaned back against the wooden pew and folded his hands in his lap to consider what on Earth would have possessed him to come here, of all places.  
  
He knew there was no solace for him to be found here. It was simply not possible for a mere priest to give him the kind of forgiveness he would be asking for - because the things he had done, or not done, or stood by and allowed to happen were just too... too...   
  
He took a deep breath and deliberately turned his mind away from the memories of his sins of commission, omission and apathy. No, only God - as well as each and every Centre victim who had been harmed as the result of his actions or inactions - held any real power to forgive. He'd already faced and resigned himself to the probability that none of them ever would.   
  
His was a damned soul - he'd known this for a very long time now. He accepted his own damnation now as fitting and even poetic justice.   
  
So why WAS he here?  
  
"Is there anything I can do for you?"  
  
Sydney blinked in surprise and looked up at the kindly face of the middle-aged priest standing next to him in the aisle. Brilliant blue eyes gazed peacefully and with restrained curiosity from a relatively unlined face topped by a thick thatch of salt and pepper. "No, thank you," he said, rising to his feet quickly. "I was just taking a breather from my walk... I should go..."  
  
"You don't have to run away," the younger man said gently, stepping back. "You just looked a little confused and pensive, sitting there, and I thought I'd offer an ear." He pointed at the pew. "I didn't mean to intrude on your meditation. Please..."  
  
"I shouldn't have come in here in the first place," Sydney murmured, more to himself than to the priest, as he stepped out of the pew and moved past the man towards the back door.  
  
"Why did you come in then?" the priest inquired gently.   
  
"I honestly don't know," Sydney admitted in a soft voice.   
  
"Do you want to?"  
  
Sydney turned and smiled at the priest, the obvious ploy in the priest's question having given him the opportunity to hide his vulnerability otherwise behind his polished scientist's demeanor, one of his most dependable and impenetrable defenses. "Nice try. But I'm a psychiatrist, Father. I know what you're doing."  
  
The priest shrugged. "So you're a psychiatrist and you know what I'm doing. Big deal. You still didn't answer my question."  
  
Sydney nodded. "You're right, I didn't. To be honest, I'm not sure I DO want to know. The only thing I do know is that it wouldn't make any difference either way."  
  
"How do you know that?" The priest tipped his head at the older man who looked as if ready to bolt at any moment. "Tell me, are you Catholic?"  
  
"No," Sydney said firmly, shaking his head. "I'm not anything." He gazed evenly into those brilliant blue eyes. "I know better than that."  
  
"Indeed." The priest smiled slightly and perched his backside on the low arm of the nearest pew and gestured for Sydney to follow suit. "And yet, despite that, you came in."  
  
Sydney considered for a moment, then slowly followed the priest's example and perched himself gingerly on the low end of the pew across the aisle. "We all do things occasionally that defy logic or reason."  
  
"Especially when we're troubled." The priest simply gazed at him when Sydney's glance grew slightly less open. "I told you that it was your look of confusion and thoughtfulness that drew me. You weren't exactly hiding your internal struggle."  
  
Sydney grunted noncommittally and suddenly found something interesting to investigate with his deceptively quiet folded hands. "I didn't think I would need to," he admitted in a soft tone, inexplicably feeling vulnerable again.  
  
"You don't," the priest responded gently. "This is probably one of the safer places to NOT have to hide an inner struggle, if you hadn't noticed."  
  
"Except from curious and slightly nosy padres," Sydney countered dryly and pointedly, struggling to reassert his defenses.  
  
The priest threw up his hands in a mock-defensive gesture. "Hey! I'm just Father Timothy, the local middle man here. And, for the record, I'm just as bound to the principles of confidentiality as you might ever be in your profession."  
  
Sydney's expression grew ever so slightly wistful. "That doesn't matter. I couldn't confide in you, Father, even if I wanted to." He watched the expression of thoughtfulness wash over the priest's face. "I wouldn't want to bring you any unwanted scrutiny that could possibly put your life at risk." He couldn't help but think of what had happened to Dr. Shafton only hours after their last appointment, four months to the day after he had worked up the nerve to try to kill Raines and failed. He wouldn't be the direct cause of something like THAT happening again; he already carried around enough guilt for one lifetime.   
  
The priest's face smoothed into a neutrality that Sydney knew all too well from his own use of it. He liked it even less from the receiving end. "You make it sound as if you possess some terrible secret."  
  
"You could say that..." Sydney muttered. The man had NO idea...  
  
"I'm sure it just feels that way..." Father Timothy began.  
  
Sydney's eyes narrowed. "Don't patronize me!"  
  
The priest blinked, and then his face reflected his genuine remorse. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."  
  
The psychiatrist took a deep breath and then smoothed the frustration from his face with effort. "It doesn't matter anyway - even IF I thought I could talk to you, you wouldn't believe my story. Hell, even I wouldn't believe me, in your place."  
  
"It isn't my job to believe or disbelieve," the black-robed cleric responded quietly, "anymore than it's my job to dispense forgiveness or peace of mind."  
  
"Hmph!" Sydney snorted softly. "The Catholic Church must have really changed in the past 50 years or so, then, since..."  
  
Father Timothy actually chuckled. "I KNEW it. I had you pegged as an ex-Catholic - although you had me going there for a moment..."  
  
"Now who's avoiding the issue?"   
  
The priest blinked at the cynicism of the retort. "Oh, we still hear confessions and hand out penances here, if that's what you're referring to. But like I said earlier, I'm only the local middle man. Confessions and penances are only superficials, mere rituals, convenient conventions used to enhance a person's inner connection with God. But it's God's business to dispense justice or forgiveness or whatever, if there's anything to be dispensed; or to know whether something is true or not rather than having to rely on belief - God's business, not mine or any other priest's."  
  
Sydney shrugged. "God or you, it makes no difference - doesn't change the truth of the situation..."  
  
"Syd?"  
  
Both men turned quickly at the sound of the soft woman's voice coming from a door open just enough that they could see her silhouette.   
  
"Parker, what are you doing here?" Sydney sighed. How in the Hell had she figured out... He blinked. Of course. She was a Red File, after all, with her mother's Inner Sense to boot; and even though she was untrained, she had enough innate talent to effectively think through possibilities to the most likely one and act on it. Her figuring that out and then focussing that talent on finding Jarod had been a secret fear ever since the first days of Jarod's freedom, the other fear being that should the Centre 'Powers That Be' discover her talent, they might convince her to do just that. She was the only one, save Jarod, who WOULD have figured out where he was.  
  
She stepped through the door and let it close behind her, much as he had done a while earlier, and came up to stand near her old friend in the semi-darkness. "I was looking for you, what's it look like I was doing? You didn't answer your cell..." She put her hand on his shoulder as he rose, ever the gentleman, her voice soft and rippling with concern. "I knew you were angry... upset... I was worried..."  
  
Father Timothy rose to his feet. "I think, maybe, you can talk to this lady much easier than you can talk to me," he pointed out bluntly to his previously unnamed companion. "She seems to understand, or be safe from this truth you want to protect me from."  
  
Miss Parker turned and stared coldly at the middle-aged man in his black robe with an eyebrow cocked and ready to fire, willing the man to hold his tongue before it could get him into more trouble than he could imagine.   
  
The stare took him aback, and the priest suddenly got the very unsettling feeling that maybe this man's reluctance to talk to him actually MIGHT have its basis in fact. The woman obviously was as dangerous as she was beautiful, for all that she seemed to care very much about the older psychiatrist.   
  
Just who WERE these people?  
  
Sydney thought for a moment, then extended his hand before the 'Ice Queen' treatment could intimidate the priest into withdrawing any further yet. "I appreciate everything you tried to do for me, Father. Really."  
  
"I didn't do anything," the priest reminded him with a gentle smile and quick shake of the head after casting yet another cautious glance at woman who had joined them. "But I'll be here if you ever feel the need to duck in again."  
  
"C'mon, Syd, I'll walk you home," Miss Parker spoke up firmly, feeling a distinct need to put as much distance between this well-meaning but innocent priest and the two of them. She tucked her hand comfortably and with the ease of long acquaintance into the crook of Sydney's arm and exerted gentle pressure on him to begin walking toward the door in the back of the nave with her.  
  
"I'll pray for you, Sydney," Father Timothy called out gently as the troubled psychiatrist and his lethally beautiful lady companion turned with matching nods to leave.  
  
"Pray for all of us, Father," the brunette tossed over her shoulder at him with surprisingly little trace of arrogance or sarcasm as she held the door open for her old friend. Once the door was shut and they were standing in the twilight of the Indian summer, however, she pulled on his arm and brought him to a halt at the top step. "Sydney, for Christ sake, you know better! I know you were pissed at Raines' and Lyle's latest demonstration of insanity today, but PLEASE tell me you didn't tell that poor man anything..."  
  
"Give me a little credit for being more than half-ways intelligent, Parker," he sighed in frustration. "I only went inside to sit and think for a bit. Besides, you know as well as I that confession is only good for the soul when one has one. The truth is that mine was signed, sealed and delivered over to the Tower a long time ago." He patted her hand on his arm. "It helps to remind myself of this sometimes - keeps me honest with myself."   
  
Miss Parker flinched at the self-accusatory tone, so unlike him. "You can always talk to me, Syd - you know that - when you need..." Her reassurance faltered into silence. It was a very sobering and disconcerting thought that neither of them dared bare their souls to anybody but each other anymore. What made it worse, however, was that more often than not either the situation itself or their own personal demons had prevented them from talking at all, not even to each other. And since her father's - Mr. Parker's - demise, the silence between them had only grown more profound.  
  
Sydney sighed again heavily and tipped his head up so that he could study the darkening sky above them as he rolled his shoulders to work out a kink in his muscles. How fitting that it was now darker out here than in the church, and even more fitting that his colleague's expensive silk pantsuit was such a dark navy blue that it looked black in the fading twilight. He really DID need to talk - and such talk would best happen in comfortable darkness with the one person he knew he could talk to more or less safely tonight.   
  
"You're right. Come on, then. Dinner's on me." And, tucking her hand back into the crook of his elbow, he escorted her down the steps and towards her appropriately black Boxter.  
  
  
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